Metro Washington Council afl-cio

​Resident advisers at GW are petitioning to become the first unionized student group at a private university, according to a report in the GW Hatchet. SEIU Local 500 filed a petition to unionize on behalf of the student workers with the National Labor Relations Board last week after two years of planning, claiming that because the students are referred to as “employees” in their contracts that they have the right to form a union. University officials filed an appeal Friday, challenging the petition under the charge that students are not explicitly employees and therefore do not have the right to organize. If the attempt succeeds, GW's RAs would be the first in the nation to unionize at a private university, setting a precedent for thousands of other student employees across the country.